Obama could be much tougher than bush

I read over on Micheal Totten's blog that Obama's father was a muslim and that
supposedly makes obama a muslim too.

Since Obama will probably be seen as an apostate of islam he'll probably turn out to be much tougher than bush on the islamofacists. I'm guessing that if he gets elected some radical mullah will quickly declare that obama has to be killed because he has left his father's religion and is apostate...and the penalty is death.
(or is it chocolate cake?)

After the first couple of attempts on his life, Obama will get the message. You don't negotiate with crazy people. Or maybe just Obama telling the islamofacists a cool pickup line will turn them all into obamamaniacs ("yeah baby, you're the one you've been waiting for" said obama as ahmadinijads beard began to quiver with nervous anticipation. Queue the saxaphone music.)

Better screwed than rude

Mark Steyn has a great essay today, here's the denoument:

Our heroes pursue phantoms as the world transforms. Is sharia, polygamy, routine first-cousin marriage in the interests of Canada or Britain or Europe? Oh, dear, even to raise the subject is to tiptoe into all kinds of uncomfortable terrain for the multicultural mindset. It's easier just to look the other way, or go Nazi-hunting in the men's room. Nobody wants to be unpleasant, or judgmental, do they? What was it they said in the Cold War? Better dead than red. We're not like that anymore. Better screwed than rude.

Go read the whole thing...

Lileks was on fire this morning too, fisking some comments called into a radio show saying
why they supported obama:

The replies were rather indistinct. He would end the division and bring us together by encouraging us all to talk about common problems, after which we would compromise. He will give us hope by giving us hope: for many, the appeal has the magical perfect logic of a tautology.
...
But compromise is impossible when you have a fundamental differences about the proper way to solve a problem. I believe we can achieve a fair society by taking away your house and giving it to someone else. I disagree. It is my house....

...If he wins, I do look forward to dissenting; since it’s been established as the highest form of patriotism, I expect my arguments will be met with grave respect. Shhhh! He’s dissenting.

To me, Obama sounds like the "migger" character of Chris Rock's old hbo show. Chris did a spoof of "The legend of bagger vance" where he'd walk through a neighborhood, wave his hand and magically fix all the problems.

Down the islands

The local guys were nice enough to take me out on a client
boondoggle out to one of the islands northwest of port of spain
where there are lots of nice houses along the shore. It was a
nice trip, and with a careful balancing of rum and cokes and
heinekens I managed to stay mostly buzzed most of the day.










Since I got here earlier in the month I've been very interested
in getting out to see that part of the island. My father served here
in the US Navy in a seebee unit back in the 50's at the base that the
Navy inherited from the British as part of the lend-lease deal.

I've heard about trinidad all my life. Most of the stories involve
"the natives", that when I was young I pictured them as National
Geographic natives, but I think a better term for them would be
"locals". People were much less politically correct 25 years ago when
I heard these stories.

The dock where we left for the islands was part of the old Navy
base at a part of the island called chaguarams. I tried to pick out
details from stories I've heard several
times: the seaplane ramp where my dad and his buddies caught an
800 pound shark using a reel of 1/8" cable and a giant steel hook with
a mullet on it. They dragged the shark up the ramp using a tug for
the seaplane, then let the locals cut it into 30 pound bloody chunks then
ride off with their shark meat on their bicycles. I've heard the road
out to chaguaramas described, since trinidad is where my father learned
how to drive. Now it's mostly suburbs stretching almost to the gates of
the base, then it was just a mangrove swamp with a one lane road where my
dad got run off the road into the swamp by a taxi driver from P.O.S.. My
dad got his revenge when he was driving a low-boy trailer carrying a bulldozer,
he didn't yield or slow down and ran that same taxi out into the muck of the
swamp.

I saw the old buildings where my dad must have worked, since the architecture
is clearly 1940's government drab. The buildings on the base are some of the
best-looking on the island, which doesn't say much for the island. Now much
of the docks area is covered by a marina filled with some damn nice
boats, and the old base buildings are taken up by the trinidad military.

The house we went to was fairly nice and it looks recently built. I told
my dad on the phone where I was going, and he said he'd been out to
these islands, previously all the houses on the islands were part of the
base area. He went to the atlantic side of the island, but to get there they
couldn't take a small rowboat through the dragons mouth, they had to
carry the boat over the hills to the north coast, then row out to the island
All that just to drink some beer and fish. Much easier trip now.

It's carnival time

I managed to get off the rig for a couple of days and it just happens
to be carnival time here in trinidad. I went to the parade yesterday,
and it wasn't too impressive float-wise, but as far as girls popping their
coochie like in a rap video, they've got new orleans beat.

I haven't made it out there yet today, I feel like I was shot at and missed,
shit at and hit after just having 6 beers yesterday. The beers here have a
high foreign object floating content, god only knows what I was poisoned with
yesterday.

Here's a cellphone shot looking down the street towards just before the
parade turns towards the reviewing stands. much of the parade is just
different groups walking, dancing and drinking down the street. much less
formal than new orleans, but it looks like the better way to do carnival,
rather than spectate.

offshore blues

so I'm stuck offshore again. I can see that the only way I can avoid working
offshore until I'm 72 is to find a job in another industry or win the lottery or run
a titty bar somewhere in south louisiana.

The problem I have in the oilfield now is I feel like I'm selling my life, bit by bit,
day by day for money. 'Here's your money in exchange for spending a day away
from home and family, see you tomorrow when I take another day out of your life',
said the devil laughing as he turned to walk away.

the oilfield is like a machine, because so much money is spent on the rig and equipment,
it's no problem to pay to keep you prisoner on the rig until they need you. Everything
and everyone has to be early to avoid the rig sitting and waiting while equipment and people
arrive. I understand the economics perfectly, I am just weary of it.

There's really not much one can do about it at this point, we are all the sum of all the
decisions ever made, so that if I had saved more in the 90's and lost less in the dot com
crash I'd have fuck you money to walk away. I really don't have that, so I'm offshore feeling
sorry for myself while roustabouts pressure wash the windows in front of me, sort of a tracks of
my tears with high pressure water blasting the bulkhead in front of me.

It could be worse, I could be on the other side of the bulkhead running the pressure washer,
instead of sitting in air conditioning writing on a blog....so I'll stop whining for a while, things
usually turn out for the best.